Stevie Wonder Stevie Wonder has been a major figure within the Black Music scene over the last forty years. Stevie Wonder was born Steveland Judkins on May13, 1950, however, he now prefers to be known as Steveland Morris after his mother's married name. He was blind at birth. The cause was the prematurity of the eye. Blood vessels in the back of the eye hadn't reached the front of the eye thus when he was born, prematurely, that growth temporarily stopped then wildly took off branching out in the Vitreous of the eye. After his family moved to Detroit in 1954, Steveland joined a church choir, the gospel leanings on his music balanced by R & B. In 1961, Ronnie White of the Miracles, who …show more content…
His contract with Motown expired in 1971, rather than re-signing right away, as the label expected, Wonder financed the recording of two albums of his own material, playing almost all the instruments himself, and experimenting for the first time with more determined musical forms. He pioneered the use of the synthesizer in Black Music, and also broadened his lyrical concerns to include racial problems and spiritual questions. Wonder then used these recordings as a lift to convince Motown to offer a more open contract, which gave him complete artistic control over his music, plus the chance to hold the rights to the music publishing with his own company, Black Bull Music. The signing of the contract with the release of the solo recordings 'Where I'm Coming' From and 'Music Of My Mind', which, despite warm serious reaction, quickly established him at the head of black music. 'Talking Book', in 1972, combined the technical advances of recent albums with big profitable success, producing hit singles from the driving 'Superstition', to the ballad standard 'You Are The Sunshine Of My Life'. Wonder married fellow Motown artist Syreeta on 14th September 1970; he premiered many of his new production techniques on 'Syreeta' (1972)
Stevie Wonder was born as Stevland Hardaway Judkins in Saginaw, Michigan on the 13th of May in 1950. He was born four weeks early and was placed in an incubator directly after birth. He lost his vision just a few hours after birth due to getting too much oxygen in the incubator. This permanent loss of sight he had was a condition called retinopathy of prematurity. Wonder was more aware of sounds and music due his sight loss. His mother left his father and moved to Detroit with him and his siblings when he was very young. He started singing in the church choir at the early age of
Stevland Hardaway Morris is an American award-winning musician known all over the world by the name Stevie Wonder. Wonder was born on May 13, 1950, in a small city in Michigan state where he lived his first four years of his life before moving to Detroit. Wonder endured a harsh childhood. Blind since birth, he overcame difficult family situations such as poverty and an abusive father, but that did not stop him. Instead, it encouraged him, to develop his natural gifts and create the most renown and expressive music of the twentieth century. Artistically, Wonder is recognized and awarded; he has made more than 30 U.S. top 10 hits, won 25 Grammy awards - the most Grammys ever given to a solo artist, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Personally, Wonder's disability, early hardships, and cultural background have shaped his philanthropic mindset by merging his talent with social justice initiatives.
Stevie Wonder was born Stevland Hardaway Judkins on May 13, 1950, in Sagina, Michigan. He became Stevland Morris after his mother remarried.Huey, 2017 Kreps, 2017 Stevie Wonder was born premature and doctors placed him in an incubator for oxygen treatments and the excess oxygen caused him to go blind by exacerbating a common condition in premature infants called retinopathy of prematurity.
Despite the fact that Stevie Wonder is blind do to a premature birth incident, he has learned to perfect a numerous amount of musical instruments. “He also bounces from piano to drums to synthesizer” (UXL). Proving as being a skilled composer and musician, Stevie is also very involved in politics. “Over the years Wonder also became progressively more involved in politics” (DISCovering).As proven you can quite tell that Stevie is an energetic and active artist who is very patriotic. You can basically say that Wonder is an inspiring man. “He has inspired a new generation of artists- including rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers” (DISCovering). There for this proves that
As a result of Stevie's impressive talent, he was signed to the label by Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records (Ribowsky 46). When Stevie became a part of the Motown label, he began to spend a lot of time at the studio and he became very comfortable there. Since Stevie was one of the youngest people working at Motown, he loved to have fun and play tricks on people by using his handicap. Stevie would say things that made it seem like he could see, so that it would freak people out (Ribowsky 61). Although being blind could be very upsetting to Stevie at times, his attitude towards his disability was not always negative. He sometimes used his handicap to have fun and make the best of dull days at the studio. When Stevie walked into different things in the studio, it didn’t frustrate him, it would just make him laugh (Ribowsky 67). Although Stevie loved to have fun and didn’t take himself too seriously, his disability made average things very hard for him. While most people could read things off of paper, Stevie had to memorize everything through sound. “See, Stevie just worked so hard, ‘cause he had to, bein’ blind and all,” recalls the guitarist Eddie “Chank” Willis. “Everyone else had the chords, the lyrics, everything on paper. Stevie had to memorize it all and Clarence would have gotten all the different little changes in tempo, beat, whatever (Ribowsky 66).” Instead of reading the words when Stevie recorded music, the person that was working with him in the studio would say the lyrics a little bit before him, and then Stevie would repeat them, making the experience longer and more complicated (Ribowsky
Among Wonder's works are singles such as "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You"; and albums such as Talking Book, Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life.[2] He has recorded more than 30 U.S. top ten hits and received 25 Grammy Awards, the most ever awarded to a male solo artist, and has sold over 100 million albums and singles, making him one of the top 60 best-selling music artists.[4] Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political
Stevland Hardaway Jenkins is what it may say on his birth certificate, but this world-renowned, transcendent artist is better known as Stevie Wonder. Even at birth, Stevie was ahead of his time. He was born premature and doctors were unsure if he would live. Stevie was placed in an incubator to save his life. As a result of the incubator supplying Stevie with too much oxygen, he was left blind. Throughout life, Stevie never let his disability hold him back. By age 10, he had already taught himself how to play a multitude of instruments including, piano, harmonica, and drums. Soon after, he was discovered by Motown Records and was dubbed “Little Stevie Wonder.” This child prodigy released his first album at age 12. Through
Jazz is the kind of music that makes me want to do one of two things. Depending on the mood of the jazz, sometimes I feel like relaxing and just listening to the music and letting it run through me. Other times I feel like getting up and dancing as if I have not a care in the world. The jazz concert I attended on at SLO Brewing Company on October 6, 2001 inspired me to do both of these due to the variety used by the musicians in dynamic, rhythm, tempo, and many other aspects of music.
At the young age of twenty two, Stevie Wonder sang, “When you believe in the things you don’t understand / Then you suffer / Superstition ain’t the way”. He started his career in the early 1960s, but in 1972, Superstition established Stevie Wonder as one of the most recognizable musicians of his time in American and African-American culture and music. Although music was Wonder’s main priority, he also dedicated his time to a fight against racism throughout national and international borders. Musically, socially, and politically, Stevie Wonder was able to bring people together with his music and words. From the time of his birth to the present day, Stevie wonder sang his way into our hearts and remains one of the most influential people
Stevie Wonder: Born as Stevland Morris, he is known to the world as Stevie Wonder. Turning blind at a young age, Wonder has carved his name in history with his legendary song recording talents. Churning out hit after hit in the international music scene, Wonder has charmed the audiences with his velvety voice and iconic style. He is one of the music industry’s most celebrated artists and has won several accolades for his contributions.
Music is something that began many years ago. It has elevated from instrumental to adding lyrics and then creating albums. An album is specifically created by one artist. In this album the artist has the freedom to share their new creativity with the world. Many artist produce an album to help them develop from an independent artist to a well-known main stream artist. One artist in particular is Chris brown. Chris brown is an artist that recognized is passion for music during his early ages of childhood. Of course as a child you typically you have many dreams and aspects to be a singer or dancer but, it usually does not come to appear until you later years of life. For Chris Brown he chose not to wait and began working in his pre-teen years.
Not only was Stevie become an adult so was his music and the process of his creations, it was a long road to be in complete control of his music, but during the years 1968-1970 Wonder took over more control and vision of his creations. (Perone 13) The commencement of Wonder’s expansion of artistry had arisen during the closing of his last album being an edgy risk for him. (Perone 13) “Even though Wonder would move away musically away from the so-called safe material, however, he did not begin writing and recording songs of social and political relevance until the next phase of his career.” (Perone 13) Stevie later on in his life had an interview with Oprah and described himself as a musician this way, “I'm a lover of music, constantly curious
Steveland Hardaway Judkins was born prematurely on May 13, 1950 in Saginaw, Michigan. Exposure to excessive amounts of oxygen in his incubator caused him to become blind. Nevertheless, he developed a strong passion for music from an early age. He learned to play various instruments such as the congas, piano, and harmonica. He was proclaimed as a child prodigy, and by the age of eleven, which was in the year of 1962, Berry Gordon signed him to the Motown Label. He then became Little Stevie Wonder.
Francis Albert “Frank” Sinatra was born december 12, 1915 and he died may 14, 1998. His current resting place is Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California. He was a singer, an actor, and a producer from 1935-1995. He had four spouses, Nancy Barbato, Ava Gardner, Mia Farrow, and Barbara Marx. With these spouses he had three children, Nancy, Frank jr., and Tina. The genres he played were jazz, swing and traditional pop. It's been said that Frank was influenced by Bing Crosby's crooning, and by learning from trombonist Tommy Dorsey's breath control and blues singer Billie Holiday's rhythmic swing.
Even though Stevie was left with no vision he began playing the harmonica at age 4, learnt to play piano at age 6 and took up drum lessons when he was 8 years old (Bio, 2011). In 1961, Stevie had the opportunity to sing to Ronnie White